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as Governor of TX and President Then still seeking helpful material for the planned executive presentation she asks Do you know when you started overscheduling load and making buckets of money on that Overscheduling load a tactic that Enron traders famously dubbed Fat Boy involved purposely overstating how much electricity would be needed in the future creating the appearance of power shortages and leading to inflated prices Mara who is now an energy consultant said Monday that the recorded conversation came about as she gathered information for a budget presentation to be made to executives at corporate headquarters in Houston We had to show what our accomplishments were for the year she said Mara said she didn t recall what the final presentation contained or which executives heard it The presentation was not prepared expressly for Skilling and Lay she said even though her statement in the recorded conversation implied that they would hear it The trading tactics discussed on the recording weren t considered illegal or manipulative by Enron Mara added Asked Monday about the transcripts Enron spokeswoman Karen Denne declined to comment save to say We have been and we re continuing to cooperate with all investigations Skilling s lawyer Bruce Hiler declined to comment Earl J Silbert an attorney for Lay could not immediately be reached Federal prosecutors in February brought a range of fraud charges against Skilling for his actions when he was at the helm at Enron but none was related to trading in the California market Lay has not been charged In a different conversation in the transcripts Enron s West Coast trading chief Timothy N Belden discusses the profitability of the company s strategies in California particularly those executed by a trading desk led by Jeffrey S Richter Well he makes between one and two million a day which never shows up on any curve shift He steals money from California to the tune of about a million At this point the other speaker interrupts asking Belden to rephrase what he just said OK Belden says He um he arbitrages the California market to the tune of a million bucks or two a day Asked about the transcript Monday Belden s lawyer Chris Arguedas said that it was not possible to draw conclusions about the meaning of Belden s remarks without a better sense of the whole conversation You can t understand words spoken unless you see the context in which they are spoken she said In October 2002 Belden pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge and has been cooperating with the government Richter pleaded guilty to similar charges the following February A spokesman for California Atty Gen Bill Lockyer said the state was continuing to investigate Enron The comments made in these transcripts if they re accurate contain the kind of information that could bolster a case against Enron said spokesman Tom Dresslar Eric Christensen a lawyer for the Snohomish utility said the transcripts strongly suggest top Enron executives knew of the trading ploys used in California

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as Governor of TX and President from further interviews documents show According to the report obtained by The Post commanders have not taken criminal action against the soldiers citing an ongoing investigation Criminal punishments apparently have not been pursued in the other interrogation death cases which also are ongoing Another Iraqi prisoner was assaulted by interrogators on two occasions in early January of this year at the FOB Rifles Base in Asad Iraq documents state U S forces arrested him for allegedly possessing explosive devices and he was later placed in an isolation cell for questioning by special forces soldiers with the Operational Detachment Alpha where he was shackled to a pipe that ran along the ceiling After he was allowed to sit he lunged at one of the soldiers grabbing his shirt The three ODA members punched and kicked the prisoner in the stomach and ribs for approximately one to two minutes documents show Three days later the prisoner escaped from his cell and was recaptured During questioning the detainee refused to follow instructions When he refused orders to remain quiet in his cell his hands were tied to the top of his cell door the report shows When he still refused he was gagged the report notes and five minutes later a soldier noticed that he was slumped down and hanging from his shackles dead According to the investigative report special forces commanders are reviewing consideration of misconduct in the case Other prisoner deaths under homicide investigation records show The beating in early April of a detainee at the LSA Diamondback facility in Mosul Iraq who was found dead in his sleep A death report showed blunt force trauma to the torso and positional asphyxia He had gone to sleep immediately after questioning by members of the Naval Special Warfare Team No disciplinary action was noted in the report but the investigation continues the report states In June at a classified interrogation facility in Baghdad an Iraqi detainee was found dead after being restrained in a chair for questioning While in custody the detainee was subjected to both physical and psychological stress the report shows An autopsy determined that he died of a hard fast blow to the head The investigation continues No disciplinary action was noted On Nov 4 an Iraqi died at Abu Ghraib during an interview by special forces and Navy SEAL soldiers An autopsy revealed the cause of death was blunt force trauma as complicated by compromised respiration The report notes that Navy investigators concluded Navy personnel did not commit a crime leading to the detainee s death But the investigation including by CIA officials is still ongoing No disciplinary action was noted Amid a storm of controversy over prisoner handling in recent weeks U S military officials have launched eight separate internal investigations into abuse cases administrative procedures and interrogation techniques They also have acknowledged that reports of abuse at Abu Ghraib violate the Geneva Conventions and other treaties According to Human Rights Watch which monitors prisoner maltreatment around

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as Governor of TX and President and the response to it by Secretary of State Colin Powell are being posted today on NEWSWEEK s web site accompanying this article As reported in this week s magazine edition the Gonzales memo urged Bush to declare all aspects of the war in Afghanistan including the detention of both Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters exempt from the strictures of the Geneva Convention In the memo Gonzales described the war against terrorism as a new kind of war and then added The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians and the need to try terrorists for war crimes such as wantonly killing civilians But while top White House officials publicly talked about trying Al Qaeda leaders for war crimes the internal memos show that administration lawyers were privately concerned that they could tried for war crimes themselves based on actions the administration were taking and might have to take in the future to combat the terrorist threat The issue first arises in a January 9 2002 draft memorandum written by the Justice Department s Office of Legal Counsel OLC concluding that neither the War Crimes Act nor the Geneva Conventions would apply to the detention conditions of Al Qaeda or Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Cuba The memo includes a lengthy discussion of the War Crimes Act which it concludes has no binding effect on the president because it would interfere with his Commander in Chief powers to determine how best to deploy troops in the field The memo by Justice lawyers John Yoo and Robert Delahunty also concludes in response to a question by the Pentagon that U S soldiers could not be tried for violations of the laws of war in Afghanistan because such international laws have no binding legal effect on either the President or the military But while the discussion in the Justice memo revolves around the possible application of the War Crimes Act to members of the U S military there is some reason to believe that administration lawyers were worried that the law could even be used in the future against senior administration officials One lawyer involved in the interagency debates over the Geneva Conventions issue recalled a meeting in early 2002 in which participants challenged Yoo a primary architect of the administration s legal strategy when he raised the possibility of Justice Department war crimes prosecutions unless there was a clear presidential direction proclaiming the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the war in Afghanistan The concern seemed misplaced Yoo was told given that loyal Bush appointees were in charge of the Justice Department Well the political climate could change Yoo replied according to the lawyer who attended the meeting The implication was that a new president would come into office and start potential prosecutions of a bunch of ex Bush officials the lawyer said

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as Governor of TX and President said Sunday on NBC s Meet the Press While no evidence has surfaced that administration officials knowingly fed dubious information to Congress the public or the news media Saeed s case suggests that officials either were unaware that he had done poorly on the CIA administered polygraph exam or overlooked that fact when they publicized his claims In making its case for war the administration also publicized claims about mobile biological weapons labs from a defector whom the Defense Intelligence Agency had labeled a fabricator and a charge that Hussein had tried to buy uranium for nuclear weapons in Africa even though the CIA had said it couldn t verify the charge The White House gave Saeed s claims prominent billing in a September 2002 background paper nine months after officials with the CIA and DIA had dismissed him as unreliable The paper was released in conjunction with a speech President George W Bush delivered at the UN General Assembly and is still available on the White House and State Department Web sites A footnote in one version attributes Saeed s claims to a Dec 20 2001 front page article in the New York Times that was based on an interview with the defector in Bangkok Thailand In the article Saeed described himself as a civil engineer who worked on renovating secret biological chemical and nuclear weapons facilities in fake lead lined water wells private villas and beneath Baghdad s main hospital Mr Saeed s account gives new clues about the types and possible locations of illegal laboratories facilities and storage sites that American officials and international inspectors have long suspected Iraq of trying to hide the newspaper said The article cited by news media around the world appeared three days after CIA and DIA experts dismissed Saeed as unreliable after the polygraph test detected lies the U S officials said Like two other Iraqi defectors Powell cited Sunday Saeed was supplied by the Iraqi National Congress a former exile group that lobbied the United States to oust Hussein The group s leader Ahmad Chalabi is on the U S appointed Iraqi Governing Council INC spokesman Entifadh Qanbar and other INC officials denied that the group knowingly provided defectors of dubious credibility The paper A Decade of Deception and Defiance can be found on the White House Web site at www whitehouse gov news releases 2002 09 iraqdecade pdf Fair Use Notice This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental political economic democratic domestic and international issues etc We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law In accordance with Title 17 U S C Section 107 the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research

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as Governor of TX and President 62 a barrel since Bush took office 42 percent higher than the average during Clinton s two terms Oil reached a record 41 38 Friday Bush 57 who owned a Texas oil company Arbusto Energy before getting into politics and Vice President Dick Cheney 63 former chairman of Halliburton Co the world s biggest oilfield services company chose to focus on broadening access to federal land for oil exploration and developing renewable energy sources such as corn based ethanol to minimize price volatility Again on Monday Treasury Secretary John Snow rejected calls to tap the reserve Our policy is it s to be used for genuine emergencies not simply to respond to high energy prices Snow told reporters in New York Snow called the high oil prices unwelcome and urged the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to boost supplies Under Bush the FTC hasn t tried to block any proposed refinery takeovers During Clinton s eight years in office the government sued once to block an oil industry merger In February 2000 the FTC sought to stop BP Plc s 33 1 billion purchase of Atlantic Richfield Co after it concluded the combination could lead to higher prices of oil pumped from Alaska BP completed the purchase in April 2000 after it agreed to sell oil fields in Alaska and terminals and pipelines in Oklahoma In the first quarter the rise in gasoline prices helped refiners generate the highest margins from refining crude oil into gasoline and other fuels since at least 1990 ConocoPhillips the largest U S oil refiner last month posted its biggest quarterly profit since the 2002 acquisition that formed the company ChevronTexaco Corp the second biggest U S oil producer said earnings rose 33 percent to the highest level since a 2001 merger formed the company Refining profit doubled If I were making a list of factors you might put consolidation on the list as a reason prices have gone up Clinton s FTC chairman Robert Pitofsky said in an interview Monday From 1993 to 2003 the market share of the five biggest U S refiners grew from 35 percent to 52 percent according to the watchdog group Public Citizen The Consumer Federation of America says 77 percent of the market on the East Coast and 67 percent on the West Coast were controlled by the top four refiners as of 2000 Fair Use Notice This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental political economic democratic domestic and international issues etc We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law In accordance with Title 17 U S C Section 107 the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes

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as Governor of TX and President missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House where according to U S government sources the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council Here we had targets we had opportunities we had a country willing to support casualties or risk casualties after 9 11 and we still didn t do it said Michael O Hanlon military analyst with the Brookings Institution Four months later intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan and the White House again killed it By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president s policy of preemption against terrorists according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey In January 2003 the threat turned real Police in London arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab connected to the camp in Iraq The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan and for the third time the National Security Council killed it Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi s operation was airtight but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam The United States did attack the camp at Kirma at the beginning of the war but it was too late Zarqawi and many of his followers were gone Here s a case where they waited they waited too long and now we re suffering as a result inside Iraq Cressey added And despite the Bush administration s tough talk about hitting the terrorists before they strike Zarqawi s killing streak continues today Fair Use Notice This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental political economic democratic domestic and international issues etc We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law In accordance with Title 17 U S C Section 107 the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes For more information go to http www law cornell edu uscode 17 107 shtml If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use you must obtain permission from the copyright owner 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

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as Governor of TX and President 000 the Allies have at present to stabilise the country Jonathan Stevenson the editor of the survey said Invading Iraq damaged the war on terror there is no doubt about that It has strengthened rather than weakened al Qa ida The report also highlights the shortcomings of US policy after the toppling of Saddam It says The lawlessness and looting that greeted the liberation of Baghdad on 9 April 2003 was replaced by widespread criminality violence and instability A year later US troops and newly constituted Iraqi forces faced an insurgency that had become a solid obstacle to rebuilding the country and moving it towards democracy and stability Unable to cope with the situation the US is now acquiescing to the formation of new private militias similar to the one patrolling Fallujah says the IISS The CPA says the report has little knowledge of the area it is meant to control And Iraqi exiles brought back to the country by the Americans to become the new political elite are very unpopular they have not managed to penetrate Iraqi society mobilise support or engender allegiance The IISS has strong establishment links with former US and British government officials among its members The Foreign Office contributed 100 000 towards the setting up of its headquarters in central London and Baroness Thatcher and Lord Robertson of Port Ellen then secretary general of Nato attended the opening The IISS dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction published on 9 September 2002 was edited by Gary Samore formerly of the US State Department and presented by Dr John Chipman a former Nato fellow It was immediately seized on by Bush and Blair administrations as providing proof that Saddam was just months away from launching a chemical and biological or even a nuclear attack Large parts of the IISS document were subsequently recycled in the now notorious Downing Street dossier published with a foreword by the Prime Minister the following week However unlike No 10 the IISS admits that it made mistakes in its dossier about the extent of the Iraqi threat and has commissioned an independent assessment by Rolf Ekeus a former head of United Nations arms inspectors in Iraq Dr Samore and Dr Chipman pointed out yesterday that its dossier had caveats about Iraq s supposed WMD arsenal while the Government insisted on removing such caveats from intelligence assessments leading to sexing up accusations Dr Chipman said of the behaviour of American forces The US is realising the awful truth that the first law of peacekeeping is the same as the first law of forensics Every contact leaves a trace Unfortunately too many bad traces have been left recently and many good ones will be needed to recover its reputation prestige and effective power Dr Samore said Whether or not the Iraq war is seen as a success in the long term would depend on the successful transfer of power to an Iraqi administration in a stable situation That does not look very hopeful

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as Governor of TX and President Ways and Means health subcommittee That inspector general s conclusion contradicted the findings of the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service which said in May that threats against Foster designed to keep him from giving Democratic lawmakers his projections of the bill s cost probably broke the law The Justice Department in an opinion attached to Tuesday s report said CRS was wrong Despite the reaction from Democrats the administration said the report should be the end of the matter We hope that with the release of this report we can put behind us the political squabbling and move on to the important work of implementing the new law HHS spokesman Bill Pierce said That seemed unlikely since the General Accounting Office Congress investigative arm is also looking into whether the gag order on Foster violated federal law Dara Corrigan the acting HHS inspector general said her office is also continuing to investigate the ethics waiver that HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson granted Scully allowing him to continue work on Medicare legislation while he was looking for work with law and investment firms that have clients affected by the legislation The various investigations highlight the trouble the Bush administration has had in promoting the new Medicare prescription drug law thought to be an election year boon for the GOP The law s first widely available tangible benefit the Medicare approved discount drug card program has gotten off to a slow confusing start The Associated Press reported a year ago that Scully threatened to fire Foster if Foster released his calculations to Democrats Scully said his comments were heated rhetoric in middle of the night But the matter took on a new life when the administration projected in the budget it submitted to Congress in January that the 10 year cost of the bill would be 534 billion instead of 395 billion estimate used in writing the legislation Foster s estimates written during consideration of the bill still have yet to be made public or turned over to congressional Democrats who have requested them In March Thompson promised to release them and said the inspector general s investigation would clear the air There seems to be a cloud over this department because of this We have nothing to hide so I want to make darn sure everything comes out Thompson said then But since then he has refused to release the documents in question House Democrats have sued for the documents in federal court and The Associated Press which sought the same materials under the Freedom of Information Act has appealed the withholding of 149 pages out of 162 pages that the agency acknowledges are responsive to its request Fair Use Notice This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental political economic democratic domestic and international issues etc We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted